Visual rhetoric in information design: designing for credibility and engagement
- Submitting institution
-
The University of Reading
: B - Typography and Graphic Communication
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory : B - Typography and Graphic Communication
- Output identifier
- 69200
- Type
- C - Chapter in book
- DOI
-
-
- Book title
- Information Design: research and practice
- Publisher
- Routledge
- ISBN
- 9780415786324
- Open access status
- -
- Month of publication
- -
- Year of publication
- 2017
- URL
-
-
- Supplementary information
-
-
- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
-
0
- Research group(s)
-
-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- Yes
- Additional information
- This chapter discusses the role of genre in information design and how genres carry rhetorical associations. It examines how designers draw on the visual conventions that are associated with good practice in information design and how these, in turn, carry particular rhetorical associations that users use to make judgments about how they will engage with information and how they interpret information and its credibility. It revisits Kinross’s seminal paper on the ‘rhetoric of neutrality’ and reinterprets ‘visual rhetoric’ in information design through a genre lens. Drawing on recent studies and with reference to a range of contemporary information design documents, it foregrounds the importance of visual rhetoric in information design through demonstrating how genre influences both people’s evaluation of information and their decisions about what they decide to read and the kinds of reading or engagement strategies they might employ. Through systematically demonstrating the link between affect and usability in visual design, it highlights how visual design establishes the ethos and credibility of document producers, sets the tone and can be empathetic or reassuring for users. This is particularly important in areas of practice like design for the financial or health sectors where users may feel stressed about the information they are engaging with to perform an important task.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -